Hacker News Reader

Comment by debacle | Hacker News Reader

I don't really ever want my browser to have Facebook integration. They have toolbars for that.

It doesn't have Facebook integration. It has support for a Social API, which is a structured way to essentially build social toolbars if you will. Facebook just happens to have implemented it. Facebook integration comes when you visit Facebook's Messenger for Firefox page and turn it on and "install" the messenger.

If you don't explicitly enable it, you'll never know it's there. We were very careful about that.

> We were very careful about that.

You still have to have in mind that even knowing that the FB parasite is somehow "in my browser and I cant remove it", even if it is not activated, makes me want to immediately toss it away in disgust and go Chrome exclusively.

16 is the latest FF I will be using and recommending and I am very likely not alone. Mozilla forcing FB on us is high treason, and many of us will start recommending Chrome instaed of FF to people we can influence just to harm Mozilla because of this betrayal.

The FF user base rose quickly by word of mouth and by word of mouth it can even more quickly disappear in Chrome's mighty shadow. FF needs us more than we need FF. Keep that in mind when you make decisions like pushing FB on us. You cannot afford playing a dictator.

It is not high treason, and it is far more than integration with Facebook. Here's a bit of explanation from the following article:

"The idea is to be able to have a quick view into a site without having to switch back and forth between tabs...The Social API doesn’t have to work with only social sites. The API could be used by financial and sports sites to maintain a ticker or email providers could use it to make it easy to check in-coming messages. And since Firefox is open source, other browser makers could implement the Social API, though no other company has announced their intention to do so."

http://gigaom.com/2012/11/20/firefox-17-launches-with-social...

It's fine if you want to debate whether such functionality belongs in a web browser, but this isn't the 90s, and I think these capabilities make sense given what I often do on the web. You can find out more about its capabilities here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API

Cheers!

Yes, entrusting all your browsing data to Google in order to spite a non-profit sure makes sense to me!!!

...come on. What Firefox have implemented is an API. Facebook is not involved until you go to Facebook and give them permission to be involved. Quit being so hysterical and remember that Mozilla is a non-profit organisation and has your interests far more at heart than Google does.

I think you (and many other people here) are confused about what Social API really is.

It's like BrowserID - a protocol that enables authentication. Facebook can implement BrowserID, StackExchange can implement BrowserID, Google can implement BrowserID; you get the idea.

The same goes for Social API. It's just a protocol for social networks. Anybody who wants to create a social site, can support the Social API and users can enable it to work on any site that offers such functionality.

Social API IS NOT "Facebook in my browser".

There is no "FB parasite" in your browser. FF is not "pushing FB on us". Social API is an API for any social service...fb just so happens to have a client for it (which is not packaged with ff).

see: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/07/06/bringing-...

> FB parasite

> go Chrome exclusively

Wat? Google wants to slurp your data just as much as Facebook

Please make it completely removable.

Moving social stuff into the browser should actually help make it more open. If a page/framework uses this Social API instead of hardcoding against a few popular networks, it opens the door for you to choose how the integration works.

I don't care about how open it is, my browser is for browsing. If I wanted a social browser I'd use AOL.

So you'll turn it off.

Hundreds of millions of folk use their browser for social stuff. It's not an unreasonable use of developer time to make the web better for those people. (It probably springs from their work on FirefoxOS in any case.)

The small set of folk like you can just disable it. (Or, as is pointed out elsewhere, just never enable it in the first place!)

Yes, I'll probably turn it off. And then when they add some strange mapping API, I'll turn that off too, and then finally when they add a storage API I'll switch to a browser that isn't trying to be everything to everyone.

Did you know that every major browser already supports storage and geolocation APIs?

http://caniuse.com/#search=localstorage

http://caniuse.com/#search=geo

You don't have to turn off anything. It is a something that you explicitly have to opt-in for.

Until it gets accidentally turned on by a browser update, or by some rogue plugin (wouldn't put it past Adobe actually), or by an optional Windows Update, or by some grayware that I mindlessly install on a computer.

If it's off by default, it should be in a plugin. If you want it, come and get it.

I guess I'm not the only one who feels that way. What I value most in my browser: security, usability, speed, and standards compliance. Since FF is not perfect (but always improving) in all of these areas, I'd rather see progress there than feature creep.

Everything else can be a plugin. I guess that means the plugin mechanism better be pretty good.

If I recall, these were some of the reasons people flocked to Chrome (Speed & Usability).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com